Beausejour small businesses put eggs in promotional basket

Easter is not until Sunday, but a bunny named BOBB is already bouncing around Beausejour.

Named after the acronym for Businesses of Beausejour Brokenhead, a Facebook page dedicated to promoting commerce in the area, BOBB’s appearances are part of a campaign encouraging people to visit businesses in the community some 45 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg.

More than 20 businesses are participating in the promotion, which started April 1 and highlights a different business each day.

BOBB places an Easter egg in the featured business before it opens. People who find the egg are entered to win a prize at the end of the day. No purchase is necessary. The entries from the daily draws will be included in a grand prize draw April 19.

Jesilyn Timmerman, one of the organizers, hopes the promotion encourages people to learn about — and visit — businesses in the area.

“This is a small town (and) we have amenities,” said Timmerman, who owns Pennyweight Market. “You don’t always have to go to Winnipeg, you don’t always have to go (online) to Amazon.”

The promotion is meant to be family-friendly fun at a time when people are feeling stressed about Canada-U.S. relations and other world events, she added.

“With the constant up and down, it is definitely nice to have something free and easy and heartwarming and hopeful,” Timmerman said. “That’s kind of what we’re striving towards.”

Beausejour has a population of 3,300, according to the 2021 census.

In addition to ads in the local newspaper and posts on social media, organizers and participating businesses have been promoting the campaign using word of mouth.

On the day the egg was hidden at Fuel Fitness and Nutrition, owner Brandy Besler received visits from people who had never before stepped foot in her gym.

“I think it’s a great way for us businesses to help promote each other,” Besler said. “I do feel Beausejour is quite the little gem and there’s a lot of businesses people don’t realize we have.”

Kim Friesen, co-owner of the Floral Merchant, agrees.

“We love our small town and we want people to know about us,” she said. “We’re all working together to promote each business each of the days. What it does is spread that awareness farther than just one business trying to do it by ourselves.”

Being an entrepreneur in a small town is about collaborating with other business owners and not competing with them, Friesen added. “Rather than stepping on each other, we want to lift everybody up.”

The promotion in Beausejour is a great example of small-business owners coming together, said Tyler Slobogian, senior policy analyst for the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.

Given the Canada-U.S. trade war, rising costs and the weaker Canadian dollar, the owners of many small- and medium-sized businesses are worried about the future, Slobogian said.

“Overall, it’s a difficult time to be a small-business owner with all the uncertainty and I think campaigns like these are a great way for businesses to band together in tough times,” he said.

An August 2023 CFIB report showed for every dollar spent at a small business, 66 cents on average stays local. Conversely, only 11 cents of every dollar spent stays in the community when consumers shop at a large multinational business.

“The ‘shop local’ movement is important right now,” Slobogian said. “We’ve really been encouraging consumers to shop out of compassion rather than convenience because it really makes a difference.”

A gift shop, dance studio, bakery, butcher and hair salon are among the businesses participating in the Beausejour promotion, which concludes today.

More than 150 businesses operate in Beausejour and the surrounding area, according to Timmerman, who sits on the Beausejour & District Chamber of Commerce board of directors.

Mayor Ray Schirle said he is encouraged by the work Timmerman and her fellow organizers are doing with the Easter-themed campaign.

“Beausejour right now is a beautiful community — very vibrant,” he said. “They’ve done a phenomenal job of promoting our local businesses.”

Organizers are already planning to repeat the promotion next spring, so BOBB will be back.

aaron.epp@freepress.mb.ca